David Applegate -

Dr. Applegate is currently Director of Government Affairs at the American Geological Institute and Editor of Geotimes, the newsmagazine of the earth sciences, published by AGI. He writes a monthly "Political Scene" column in Geotimes and has written numerous journal articles, book chapters, and magazine articles on both geology and public policy. He also teaches courses on earth resources and natural hazards for the Environmental Sciences and Policy master's program at The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Applegate worked with the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as the American Geophysical Union's 1994-1995 Congressional Science Fellow and, following the fellowship, as a professional staff member for the minority. As a fellow, he worked on a range of issues within the committee's jurisdiction including nuclear waste disposal, federal helium policy, environmental cleanup of the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex, and oversight of federal agencies including the U.S. Geological Survey. Applegate took the AGU fellowship shortly after receiving his Ph.D. in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he did his dissertation on the tectonic evolution of the Funeral Mountains in the Death Valley region of California. He also holds a B.S. in geology from Yale University.

Cornelia Dean -

Journalist Cornelia Dean frequently writes about environmental and health issues. She is the author of Against the Tide: The Battle for America's Beaches (Columbia, 1999), a critically acclaimed examination of the overdevelopment and erosion of America's shorelines. Dean has taught reporting and editing at the University of Rhode Island and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and also a course on technology and public policy at Vassar.

A graduate of Brown University (1969), Dean earned her master's degree from Boston University in 1981. She joined the national desk of The New York Times in 1984 after serving as a reporter and editor at the Providence (R.I.) Journal for 15 years. Moving to the science department a year later as assistant editor, she became deputy science editor in 1987 and then deputy Washington editor in 1994. In 1997 Dean was appointed the Times's science editor, in which position she oversees daily coverage by a 15-member staff as well as the weekly "Science Times" section and the weekly health page. She also is heard regularly on WQEW and WQXR's "Health Times."

Dave Houseknecht -

Dr. Houseknecht joined the U.S. Geological Survey in 1992, serving as Energy Program Manager until 1998. He has been working on Alaska North Slope basin analysis and petroleum resource assessment since 1995. During these years, he has presented to Congress and the Administration the USGS scientific perspective on ANWR and on other Alaska oil and gas issues. Previously, Dr. Houseknecht was a professor of geology at the University of Missouri (1978-1992) and a consultant to the oil industry (1981-1992), working on projects throughout the United States as well as in South America, the Far East, the Middle East and Europe. During his career, his research has focused on basin analysis, sandstone diagenesis and reservoir quality, thermal history of sedimentary basins, and assessment of oil and natural gas resources. He received geology degrees from Penn State (Ph.D. 1978, B.S. 1973) and Southern Illinois University (M.S. 1975).

Bill Huyett -

Mr. Huyett is a director at McKinsey and Company, Inc. Based in Boston, he has been part of McKinsey’s Zurich and Washington, D.C. offices during his 16 years with the Firm. He serves European and US-based clients, primarily in the pharmaceutical, biotech, medical products and healthcare payor/provider sectors. His work focuses on corporate strategy, product development and commercialization and corporate leadership. His interests include:

Prior to joining McKinsey, Mr. Huyett held a variety of line management positions in the electronics industry. His degrees in electronics engineering, computer science and business are from the University of Virginia.

Roger Kaye -

Roger Kaye is a Wilderness Specialist and Pilot with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He teaches a program on Wilderness and the Human Spirit at the Carhart Wilderness Training Center and has taught Wilderness Management and Environmental Psychology that the University of Alaska. While his research interests are focused on the philisophical and psychological underpinnings of the wilderness concept, most of his work is focused upon on-the-ground management issues.

W. Dallam Masterson -

EXPERIENCE AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

1984 Masterson, W. D., and Kyle J. R., "Geological, geochemical, stable isotope, and fluid inclusion characteristics of epithermal gold mineralization, Velvet District, Nevada," Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 20, 55 - 74.

Caleb Pungowiyi -

Caleb Pungowiyi is a Yup'ik Eskimo who was born and raised on Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island. He has extensive experience as a spokesperson and advocate for Native concerns and traditional knowledge in regional, national, and international policy matters.

Pungowiyi also serves on the Bering Sea Impact Study (a subcommittee of the International Arctic Science Committee), the Arctic Research Consortium of the U.S., and Indigenous Peoples Council for Marine Mammals.
Past service has included the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs Advisory Committee, Inuit Circumpolar Conference Executive Council, the Steering Committee of the Alaska Native Science Commission, the Polar Research Board Committee on Bering Sea Ecosystems, the Advisory Panel on Arctic Impacts from Soviet Nuclear Contamination, the Native American Rights Fund, the Alaska Coastal Policy Council, and the Alaska Conservation Foundation. Pungowiyi's lecture topics include: Alaska Natives and Marine Mammals and Effects of Climate Change on coastal communities of northern Alaska.

Fran Ulmer -

Fran Ulmer served two terms as Alaska's Lt. Governor from December 1994 to December 2002. During her eight years in office Ulmer was instrumental in developing policies to help Alaska state government enter the information age. As the former head of the Division of Elections, Ulmer is credited for modernizing Alaska's election process in part, by proposing the state install new optical scanning voting and tabulating machines. The Accu-Vote machines made it possible for election workers to tabulate Alaska's votes in a matter of hours. Before Accu-Vote, hand counting in Alaska's widespread election districts took days and sometimes weeks to complete. Ulmer also asked Elections officials to make vote counts available to the public in "real time," using the power of the Internet. Under Ulmer's direction, the Division of Elections established for the first time in Alaska, a web page that provided information on candidates, election districts, and other useful information. It also offered for the first time, up-to-the minute election results on its web page in 1996. New elections technology and Ulmer's insistence for depoliticizing policies, professional staff and poll worker training, makes Alaska's election system a model for other states. In November of 2001 Alaska was one of only two states to receive the Common Cause's highest rating for election reform.

Ulmer was asked Governor Knowles to Chair the state's Telecommunications Information Council (TIC). Knowles asked her to find ways to use technology and telecommunications to make government more efficient, user-friendly and accessible to Alaskans. In 1996, Ulmer directed the Council to produce the state's first Telecommunication Plan as a blueprint for the future. The plan outlined several goals including developing the state's presence on the World Wide Web and standardizing telecommunications procurement policies for state government.

Under the TIC's direction, state agencies made many services available online-from fishing licenses to ferry schedules, from drivers manuals to an online kiosk for all state procurement information. For its efforts as a digital state, Alaska was recognized with numerous awards, including first place in Digital Democracy by the Progress & Freedom Foundation at the 1997 National Conference of State Legislators.

As a member of the Local and State Government Advisory Committee for the Federal Communications Commission, Ulmer worked on issues that were important not only to Alaska, but to other rural areas in the United States. She was a staunch supporter of the FCC's E-Rate program, which provided telecommunications subsidies for rural areas. The E-rate program was instrumental in helping Alaska schools get wired. In 2002, the state, led by Ulmer, was successful in receiving an FCC rule waiver that allowed Alaska rural villages to take advantage of the e-rate program beyond libraries and schools.

For her leadership Ulmer was recognized as one of the nation's top 25 technology leaders in 2001 by the Center for Digital Government and the Progress & Freedom Foundation.